One of my favorite children’s books is The Story of Ferdinand, by Munro Leaf. While all the other bulls snort, leap and butt their heads, Ferdinand is content to just sit and smell the flowers under his favorite cork tree. Ferdinand reminds me of our first rescue dog, Jagger, who when we met him for the first time, was one of only two dogs in the shelter who wasn’t growling and baring their teeth at us. He wagged his tail, and because of this, we took him home. Like Ferdinand, Jagger chose quiet dignity in a loud world. Sitting still among the flowers seems easy enough, but when everyone around you is screaming, stillness becomes an act of resilience.
Welcome to Pocketful of Prose, a community for sharing stories. Each week I highlight books I love and share some original stories and poems. Pocketful of Prose is free for everyone, so please share with friends.
Without further ado, today’s pocket.
I want to stay here…
with the loons and the ducks and the Black-Crowned Night Heron that nestles in the tropical tree, the tree I can’t name, a manzanita maybe, a magnificent, marvelous, magical manzanita, that Mary Poppins might pull from her carpet bag.
It might not be a manzanita. It might be something else altogether. I have yet to learn the names of all the trees here. This is not my home.
I sit on the stone wall overlooking Mission Creek, a teal cushion to warm my bum, purple toes dangling over the side, watching the black water birds with the white noses go about their business.
American Coots, I later learn.
If ever there was a bird for our time.
The fuchsia blossoms on the tree that may or may not be a manzanita reflect on the water as do the colors of the small school bus parked beside it. Why there is a school bus here, I do not know. I simply marvel at how the reflection transforms the bus into something else. In the water, the bus becomes an Impressionist painting, a bright and beautiful blur.
I want to stay here…
I want to watch the ducks stick out their feet and come in for a landing, announcing their arrival. I want to spend the rest of my days watching scrub jays and squirrels and Tiny Fey and Amy Pohler movies with you. I didn’t think I’d like the one where they are making a stink over the sale of their childhood home. It seemed silly even for them, but you convinced me to give it a chance, and I’m surprised by the kinship I feel for Tina Fey when she throws an all-out tantrum, kicking the for-sale sign and throwing herself down on the lawn.
I want to throw things too these days, and I know what it’s like to feel like you’ve lost everything.
American coots
The real American Coots are too busy for such things. They bob beneath the surface of the Santa Ynez rainwater and then return, carefully preening their feathers. Is this the stillness so often spoken of?
Stillness has always seemed a little aspirational to me, a nice idea but a challenge in practice. Every time I hear The Head and The Heart’s song, “Let’s Be Still,” I feel like I’m missing something.
“You can get lost in the music for hours
Honey, you can get lost in a room
We can play music for hours and hours
But the sun will still be coming up soon
The world's just spinning a little too fast
If things don't slow down soon, we might not last
So just for a moment, let's be still”
It’s a lovely song, but for me it points out what I should be doing, not what I am doing. I want to be as still as Ferdinand beneath the cork tree, but more often I’m kicking signs, screaming and throwing myself down on the grass.
But in our small, rented bedroom with a view of a garden where rainbow chard and Tuscan kale stretch to the sky like tropical trees, I curl up next to you, and look out the window to see so much horizon. The mama mallard quacks, and the lights dance on the tropical tree that I still can’t name because this is not my home…
which is what Tina Fey says to her parents after they have the audacity to find a new home, after they have the audacity to be happy. This is before she has her epiphany, where she stops screaming and turns to her sister and says, “We are the home,” and then she and Amy Poehler do a ridiculous, joyous dance in the living room like a pair of American Coots.
In that same stretch of horizon, I nestle into you like the Night Heron to the Manzanita, and our laughter lingers long after the sun has gone down.
The sky is no longer pink, but the color stays. I put my head on your chest and imagine I am a duck flying over Mission Creek, webbed feet dangling beneath wobbly wings which beat to the sound of your heart.
I don’t know if this is stillness. It might be something else altogether. I have yet to learn the names of all the trees here, but I know your name and you know mine.
This is our home.
This is beautiful. Gotta go and watch Sisters now.
This is really wonderful. It is good to be reminded of what makes home, home.